The only concerns would be the minimal fallout (which will occur- the media of the bomb still produces things like Sr-90), and the problems the EM pulses from the detonations would cause.
Honestly, I'd take having to pick up the smoking pieces of a largely successful defense with the current crop of missiles with low-yield nukes than trying to clean up after the mess of even a percent failure level- not that I want to have us do something like this. Disrupting the world this way is waaay stupid and there's other ways to do things...
I'm pretty sure that you'd have to be almost dead-on with a pony bomb EMP attack- the devices have to be shielded against pretty stiff EM pulses such as might be caused by the first inbounds on an attack. EMP's not the way, though a pony bomb attack might still be the way to go- it all boils down to what's considered acceptable fallout levels if we have to actually commit a defense of that nature.
...inbound birds you have and how closely they're clustered together. If you can catch the damn things at apogee, they're going to be largely in space and relatively few in numbers- well placed low-yield warheads might do the trick; but you've still got fallout issues, just nothing like you'd get with warheads larger than.1-1kt (Which we DO happen have warheads that small...).
The shockwave will disrupt things, the EMP probably won't- as I've discussed in a separate thread, they knew about nukes and EMP back in the H-Bomb testing era... The birds are very probably shielded against a nuke or Flux Compression Generator EMP attack- got to ensure the first inbounds don't cripple the later in birds.
It's not that EMP's from "small devices" are difficult (They have working devices that can electrically kill any unshielded device within a football field sized area that fit into a glide bomb...) it's that EMP attacks are of limited usefulness against the missiles. A Flux Compression Generator will produce a nuke-like EM pulse that'll take out something nearby it, but, it's not TOO difficult to shield against that sort of pulse, even with older warheads- and they started shielding against EMP once they H-Bomb tests revealed that EMP was possible and could take out gear (Gotta make sure that the first inbounds don't disable the others, you know...).
EMP's not going to be the effective way about this unless you can come up with EM radiation intense enough to take out electronics that'll pass through the shielding (Millimeter waves? Focused Gamma Rays?)- and be able to pack a compact enough power source for it to be deployable.
There's an easy answer for this- and it's not to subscribe to their silly service.
The problems with Windows stuff exists because of poor coding and design on MS' part (After 10-15 years, you'd think they'd have gotten it right by now- and things like the WMF flaw just simply take the cake...) and they don't seem to be interested in timely fixes for real problems (read: bugs...) in their product apparently- unless you pay more for the privilege. Any other company's offerings would be shunned like the plague under normal circumstances with these attitudes about their customers.
What's my easy answer for this problem? It's rather simple, really...
Just. Don't. Use. His. Software.
Anything but MS Office. Anything but IE. If you're braver, anything but Windows.
Yeah, I know, easily said, not so easily done.
Many Windows users seem to be spending more effort trying to keep what they're comfortable with because it's familiar to them, than it actually would take to learn something new that takes much less effort to learn and use than you're expending to maintain that familiar environment.
Suit yourselves, it is, after all, your time and effort...
You're counting vulnerabilities. What was the severity and ease of exploit? Why is it that IIS servers get smacked more often than Apache servers, hm?
Simply put, just because someone says there's more vulnerabilities doesn't make it less secure- Apache's WAAAY more prevalent and used than IIS. The payoff for exploiting it is MUCH higher than IIS- so, why is it that they're not smacked anywhere near as often?
All of this caterwauling you're doing is irrelevent if you miss little details like the above when discussing things of this nature. When confronted with contrary facts that are concrete and largely absolute, you had best evaluate the pro information with a little more critical eye.
The only problem with that thinking is that while it's all well and good to assume that it could be a terrorist, there's nothing involved with that tourist taking pictures that is agaist the law. They don't have the authority to shoo people away unless it's posted no-trespass for varying reasons as it's, by definition, in public if someone can traipse up to it and take pictures of it.
And, if you wish to make it illegal, the terrorists have already won what they sought to do.
Speaking as the CTO of a former Internet Appliance company, most televisions worldwide SUCK as a usable computer monitor.
It's part of why the IA market didn't really take off (To be sure, there were more, but it's the straw that broke the camel's back...).
Stated maximum resolution for NTSC sets: 648x486 Peak actual NTSC resolution : 540x480 Typical NTSC resolution : 352x240
The last line is the average usable broadcast resolution- and as such, many of the sets out there aren't capable more than that cleanly- it'd been a waste of profit margins to build precisely to spec when it'd not be noticed. Yes, you could use your TV as a monitor, and that was the primary option for people with their C64, TI, TimexSinclair, Color Computer, etc. But they didn't attempt to do much more 512x480, and typically did the lower resolution by default and many owners went looking for "the right television" for their computer if they didn't get a monitor. What Bill's suggesting is evil to say the least- and not because of it being a Windows based solution or a cell-phone (which would be a waste in and of itself...).
Re:I disagree with his statement...
on
Mitnick on OSS
·
· Score: 1
Do you think that it'd be any different in a closed source shop? It typically isn't. Closed Source, Open Source, doesn't matter- it's just that it's more likely to happen in an Open Sourced project because there's more of an incentive to do so (Sense of craftsmanship, etc...). In Closed Source, for most contexts, it costs a LOT more money to accomplish a proper and thorough audit of code for security purposes. Typically, it's NOT done unless we're talking about the stuff the Phone Switching hardware vendors field, defense contractors, systems and physical security vendors, and so forth. This is because that task seriously eats into profits unless it's a primary function of the process.
Get real... Apache's an appealing target. Which web server has more exploits for it? IIS.
There is absolutely nothing in your little hypothetical situation that couldn't be accomplished in closed source as well- and in actuality, it'd be easier as the audits wouldn't be as intense (Witness the WMF debacle for proof of something that should have been caught that wasn't in Closed Source software.).
Simply put, what you claim isn't. But I'm confusing this discussion by including facts, aren't I?
Think about it this way: I know, as a sysadmin, that requiring a username and password isn't going to stop people from attacking my systems, but I'm sure not going to just leave an open, logged in terminal out where people can get to it!
Well, I am not one to say that I want to make it easier to get on a plane. However, your analogy (and what you're saying works better than nothing...) is flawed. An ID can be forged, etc. and the people checking it wouldn't know that they're forged. Again, the people that perpetrated 9/11 HAD valid ID and all- and they still did it and would largely still been able to have done it (Sans box-cutters, they could have accomplished things with polymer/ceramic/glass knives instead...) with what's in place now. What we have now, to use your sysadmin analogy, would be to have every other user use RuMpLeStIlTkIn and rUmPlEsTiLtSkIn as their passwords. Sure, it makes it more difficult to log in, but...
Basically, you've missed the point I was making in the first place- ineffective answers are as bad or worse than doing nothing. It can be worse because you have a false sense of security. The best security measures on a plane nowadays is the passengers and Air Marshals (Which are woefully underequipped- El Al flies with Marshals with fully automatic Uzi's. You flatly don't see the terrorists doing things with El Al flights- now, why is that? Here's a Hint: It's not because they're checking ID's and confiscating nail clippers and keychains...). Checking ID's a wonderful measure to a point, but relying on it and insisting upon it because of 9/11 is a big fat waste of time as they're not going to be doing things through that avenue much anymore.
Yes, we need to do something- but the somethings we're doing are ineffective and are more risky than doing nothing.
You'd think that, but most of the boarding agents check ID (At least on the flights I've been on, and I've flown to a lot of places since 9/11, including to the DC area... While I agree that most of the security measures in most places are largely useless, the ones the implemented for coming and going out of the DC area are, while obnoxious, something that would have been effective against a 9/11 style attack coming back into the Capital from either of the airports in the area- but they're kind of time consuming (moreso than the other stuff we've been forced to endure) and at least a little more expensive to implement.) to ensure that the person matches the boarding pass these days. Except for Southwest, which hands you this silly little plastic placard as your boarding pass.
In theory, it's a problem, but the Airlines are trying to ensure this as their own policy (I asked 'em...) for their own security. I've no problems with that one, really- it's their own policy for their own security reasons; and that's fine by me. Not for 9/11, but for liability, etc. reasons that they do this nowadays.
The terrorists that commited the 9/11 act HAD valid ID, etc. Checking for ID doesn't do anything of what they stated. Niether would the current searches, etc. In fact, many of the enacted policy items from the DHS has been "feel-good" things to make it look like the Government is "Doing Something". This is not to say that they're not actually doing some valid things (They are- but the stupid things offset all of those to make it at least a wash...), but they're scurrying about, instituting policies that wouldn't have done any better than what was in place to have prevented 9/11 from happening. There's some critical paths that aren't protected (I'm not saying what- more for reasons that we're trying to get the DHS on board with right now...) and they're in desperate need of that- we shouldn't be wasting as much of the time and energy that we are on checking ID's, searching luggage (in the manner we're doing it...), searching people (in the manner we're doing it...), etc...
Realize this one fact:
Not ONE thing instituted by the government to date from after 9/11 would have prevented it from occuring.
That's a dead certain fact. In fact, most of the government will agree with that statement, actually... Once you understand this, you see that all of this stuff we're discussing is really something to make the populace feel good- because it's "cheaper" than the real solutions in most cases.
Of course, Quad CPUs in the case of an UltraSparc T1 translates into an even bigger disparity.
Everyone needs to face facts here- Itanium's an expensive flop akin to the iAPX432 CPU also from Intel. Unlike the i432, Intel didn't have the good sense to realize that while it looked good on paper, it didn't look so good in silicon and as such, they pushed the Itanium forward when it should have been euthanized earlier on. It performs decently in native mode, but not as well as comparably priced CPUs from AMD, Sun, and IBM. It does support the legacy sofware in a sort of emulation mode, but slower than any comparable machine from AMD.
I take that it's amazing and unbelievable that they'd be allowed to run this one even up the flagpole in the first place. But then, it's not gone to prelim hearings- it may be shot down in flames by the Judge presiding over the case. However, it's QUITE illegal to promulgate a nonexistent case, even on a tenuous legal theory- the term for such an act is "Barritry". Lawyers used to worry about something like that because if someone made it stick, it'd be disbarrment amongst other things. Nowadays, it seems that anything goes, even IF it's flatly illegal for the Lawyers to do it. I mean, this case and the SCO v. IBM case is prime examples of this.
The moment that you create a literary/artistic work, such as your post or my reply, it is Copyrighted. I choose to allow Slashdot to liberally publish the work in question (as I hope do you...), but it is still Copyrighted per how the laws are written- this doesn't mean it's a Registered Copyright, which is a different beast.
However, I can't see how their legal theory (which is all this really is- the law doesn't SAY what they're claiming...) is going to fly in a court with a competent Litigator on the defendent's side. While I'm not a lawyer, I'm very cognizent of how the law's supposed to work, being an author, professional software engineer, and Patented Inventor- to be sure, there's nuances, but...
The non-digital world analogy of what I see that they're trying to litigate the tort for would be a Library- which is very legal. Unless there's an act of unlawful downloading from the share, it's NOT infringement and therefore isn't something that the laws talk to. Worse, you don't go after the library unless they're printing copies themselves willfully, which would be the analogy of someone putting up stuff on a P2P program that's publicly accessable, they typically go after the infringers unless the Library's encouraging the act of copying with the photocopiers, tape recorders, etc. It remains to be seen whether or not the defendant actually was guilty of encouragement, but if they're not, RIAA largely doesn't have a case- and if there was no infringements accomplished, it's still not illegal no matter what the RIAA says. To be sure, again, I'm NOT a Lawyer- but my understandings of how the law works doesn't map to what they're trying to run up the flagpole here.
Until Xen can work without mods to the OS, you can't get it to host on anything but Linux (which HAS the mods available...) and it won't hypervisor for anything without mods (Again...)
The ability to handle doing it's magic mojo without OS modifications is still waiting in the wings from AMD and Intel in the form of extra hardware to allow it to do it's thing.
Since the drivers are still somewhat in their infancy, your mileage may vary, but it appears that both vendors (Which comprise many of the USB thumb sized adapters out there...) have stepped up to the plate and provided source and technical data to back it up with. There's been decent reports of usability with the Hawking model using ZyDas' chipset. At least for now, devices like the Hawking HWU54G adapter are largely supported in some mode that is remotely usable. I suspect that by the end of year that the driver sets for these two vendors' chips will end up in the kernel proper.
Not overly relevant- NDA only applies when the info is not already disclosed by other parties. If it's already public knowlege, you can't be kept from publicly disbursing it yourself. I find that the Alaska people are dodging their responsibility to the constituents and using "proprietary" data formats as an excuse. Sounds like there's some funny business going on in there and they're trying to hide a felony or two in the mix.
They shouldn't compensate with "new" drivers that cover up the fact that the "same" model is nothing of the sort. Many of the USB WiFi adapters are actually supported- Hawking's is one example at this point. One of the "cheap" vendors took it upon themselves to provide an open sourced Linux driver. The PCMCIA landscape's a little iffy- but if you stick with Prism based cards (Yes, more expensive, but they're much better performers) you've got no issues there either as Intersil gifted us with the same thing, fully open sourced drivers. Broadcom's the biggest bad-boy in this story, with most of the integrated laptop WiFi chipsets being provided by them. Considering that most of the other players are also using software defined radios, there's really no excuse for them not stepping up to the plate with at least regular official binaries for Linux- if not source code. Their reason's BOGUS.
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What you just posted did NOT make any sense. One Cycle? Of What? Please clarify what you just said.
The only concerns would be the minimal fallout (which will occur- the media of the bomb still produces things like Sr-90), and the problems the EM pulses from the detonations would cause.
Honestly, I'd take having to pick up the smoking pieces of a largely successful defense with the current crop of missiles with low-yield nukes than trying to clean up after the mess of even a percent failure level- not that I want to have us do something like this. Disrupting the world this way is waaay stupid and there's other ways to do things...
I'm pretty sure that you'd have to be almost dead-on with a pony bomb EMP attack- the devices have to be shielded against pretty stiff EM pulses such as might be caused by the first inbounds on an attack. EMP's not the way, though a pony bomb attack might still be the way to go- it all boils down to what's considered acceptable fallout levels if we have to actually commit a defense of that nature.
...inbound birds you have and how closely they're clustered together. If you can catch the damn things at apogee, they're going to be largely in space and relatively few in numbers- well placed low-yield warheads might do the trick; but you've still got fallout issues, just nothing like you'd get with warheads larger than .1-1kt (Which we DO happen have warheads that small...).
The shockwave will disrupt things, the EMP probably won't- as I've discussed in a separate thread, they knew about nukes and EMP back in the H-Bomb testing era... The birds are very probably shielded against a nuke or Flux Compression Generator EMP attack- got to ensure the first inbounds don't cripple the later in birds.
It's not that EMP's from "small devices" are difficult (They have working devices that can electrically kill any unshielded device within a football field sized area that fit into a glide bomb...) it's that EMP attacks are of limited usefulness against the missiles. A Flux Compression Generator will produce a nuke-like EM pulse that'll take out something nearby it, but, it's not TOO difficult to shield against that sort of pulse, even with older warheads- and they started shielding against EMP once they H-Bomb tests revealed that EMP was possible and could take out gear (Gotta make sure that the first inbounds don't disable the others, you know...).
EMP's not going to be the effective way about this unless you can come up with EM radiation intense enough to take out electronics that'll pass through the shielding (Millimeter waves? Focused Gamma Rays?)- and be able to pack a compact enough power source for it to be deployable.
Ah, but they don't kiss you first, give you flowers, or use lube (I think they use 80 grit sandpaper instead...)...
There's an easy answer for this- and it's not to subscribe to their silly service.
The problems with Windows stuff exists because of poor coding and design on MS' part (After 10-15 years, you'd think they'd have gotten it right by now- and things like the WMF flaw just simply take the cake...) and they don't seem to be interested in timely fixes for real problems (read: bugs...) in their product apparently- unless you pay more for the privilege. Any other company's offerings would be shunned like the plague under normal circumstances with these attitudes about their customers.
What's my easy answer for this problem? It's rather simple, really...
Just. Don't. Use. His. Software.
Anything but MS Office. Anything but IE. If you're braver, anything but Windows.
Yeah, I know, easily said, not so easily done.
Many Windows users seem to be spending more effort trying to keep what they're comfortable with because it's
familiar to them, than it actually would take to learn something new that takes much less effort
to learn and use than you're expending to maintain that familiar environment.
Suit yourselves, it is, after all, your time and effort...
You're counting vulnerabilities. What was the severity and ease of exploit? Why is it that IIS servers get smacked more often than Apache servers, hm?
Simply put, just because someone says there's more vulnerabilities doesn't make it less secure- Apache's WAAAY more prevalent and used than IIS. The payoff for exploiting it is MUCH higher than IIS- so, why is it that they're not smacked anywhere near as often?
All of this caterwauling you're doing is irrelevent if you miss little details like the above when discussing things of this nature. When confronted with contrary facts that are concrete and largely absolute, you had best evaluate the pro information with a little more critical eye.
The only problem with that thinking is that while it's all well and good to assume that it could be a terrorist, there's nothing involved with that tourist taking pictures that is agaist the law. They don't have the authority to shoo people away unless it's posted no-trespass for varying reasons as it's, by definition, in public if someone can traipse up to it and take pictures of it.
And, if you wish to make it illegal, the terrorists have already won what they sought to do.
Speaking as the CTO of a former Internet Appliance company, most televisions worldwide SUCK as a usable computer monitor.
It's part of why the IA market didn't really take off (To be sure, there were more, but it's the straw that broke
the camel's back...).
Stated maximum resolution for NTSC sets: 648x486
Peak actual NTSC resolution : 540x480
Typical NTSC resolution : 352x240
The last line is the average usable broadcast resolution- and as such, many of the sets out there aren't capable more than that cleanly- it'd been a waste of profit margins to build precisely to spec when it'd not be noticed. Yes, you could use your TV as a monitor, and that was the primary option for people with their C64, TI, TimexSinclair, Color Computer, etc. But they didn't attempt to do much more 512x480, and typically did the lower resolution by default and many owners went looking for "the right television" for their computer if they didn't get a monitor. What Bill's suggesting is evil to say the least- and not because of it being a Windows based solution or a cell-phone (which would be a waste in and of itself...).
Do you think that it'd be any different in a closed source shop? It typically isn't. Closed Source, Open Source, doesn't matter- it's just that it's more likely to happen in an Open Sourced project because there's more of an incentive to do so (Sense of craftsmanship, etc...). In Closed Source, for most contexts, it costs a LOT more money to accomplish a proper and thorough audit of code for security purposes. Typically, it's NOT done unless we're talking about the stuff the Phone Switching hardware vendors field, defense contractors, systems and physical security vendors, and so forth. This is because that task seriously eats into profits unless it's a primary function of the process.
Get real... Apache's an appealing target. Which web server has more exploits for it? IIS.
There is absolutely nothing in your little hypothetical situation that couldn't be accomplished in closed source as well- and in actuality, it'd be easier as the audits wouldn't be as intense (Witness the WMF debacle for proof of something that should have been caught that wasn't in Closed Source software.).
Simply put, what you claim isn't. But I'm confusing this discussion by including facts, aren't I?
It's not a new codebase. It's more stuff piled on top of NT 3.1...
They've not honestly used a new codebase for much of anything since Win95, Win 3.1, or DOS.
Well, I am not one to say that I want to make it easier to get on a plane. However, your analogy (and what you're saying works better than nothing...) is flawed. An ID can be forged, etc. and the people checking it wouldn't know that they're forged. Again, the people that perpetrated 9/11 HAD valid ID and all- and they still did it and would largely still been able to have done it (Sans box-cutters, they could have accomplished things with polymer/ceramic/glass knives instead...) with what's in place now. What we have now, to use your sysadmin analogy, would be to have every other user use RuMpLeStIlTkIn and rUmPlEsTiLtSkIn as their passwords. Sure, it makes it more difficult to log in, but...
Basically, you've missed the point I was making in the first place- ineffective answers are as bad or worse than doing nothing. It can be worse because you have a false sense of security. The best security measures on a plane nowadays is the passengers and Air Marshals (Which are woefully underequipped- El Al flies with Marshals with fully automatic Uzi's. You flatly don't see the terrorists doing things with El Al flights- now, why is that? Here's a Hint: It's not because they're checking ID's and confiscating nail clippers and keychains...). Checking ID's a wonderful measure to a point, but relying on it and insisting upon it because of 9/11 is a big fat waste of time as they're not going to be doing things through that avenue much anymore.
Yes, we need to do something- but the somethings we're doing are ineffective and are more risky than doing nothing.
When they have things like the WMF flaw in the designs (And ended up in Vista as well as XP and 2000...) they are NOT about security.
Security is by design, not as a friggin' afterthought.
This has little to do with MS bashing- it's just that MS doesn't think much about security and everyone knows it (Well, everyone but you, it seems...)
You'd think that, but most of the boarding agents check ID (At least on the flights I've been on, and I've flown to a lot of places since 9/11, including to the DC area... While I agree that most of the security measures in most places are largely useless, the ones the implemented for coming and going out of the DC area are, while obnoxious, something that would have been effective against a 9/11 style attack coming back into the Capital from either of the airports in the area- but they're kind of time consuming (moreso than the other stuff we've been forced to endure) and at least a little more expensive to implement.) to ensure that the person matches the boarding pass these days. Except for Southwest, which hands you this silly little plastic placard as your boarding pass.
In theory, it's a problem, but the Airlines are trying to ensure this as their own policy (I asked 'em...) for their own security. I've no problems with that one, really- it's their own policy for their own security reasons; and that's fine by me. Not for 9/11, but for liability, etc. reasons that they do this nowadays.
The terrorists that commited the 9/11 act HAD valid ID, etc. Checking for ID doesn't do anything of what they stated. Niether would the current searches, etc. In fact, many of the enacted policy items from the DHS has been "feel-good" things to make it look like the Government is "Doing Something". This is not to say that they're not actually doing some valid things (They are- but the stupid things offset all of those to make it at least a wash...), but they're scurrying about, instituting policies that wouldn't have done any better than what was in place to have prevented 9/11 from happening. There's some critical paths that aren't protected (I'm not saying what- more for reasons that we're trying to get the DHS on board with right now...) and they're in desperate need of that- we shouldn't be wasting as much of the time and energy that we are on checking ID's, searching luggage (in the manner we're doing it...), searching people (in the manner we're doing it...), etc...
Realize this one fact:
Not ONE thing instituted by the government to date from after 9/11 would have prevented it from occuring.
That's a dead certain fact. In fact, most of the government will agree with that statement, actually... Once you understand this, you see that all of this stuff we're discussing is really something to make the populace feel good- because it's "cheaper" than the real solutions in most cases.
Of course, Quad CPUs in the case of an UltraSparc T1 translates into an even bigger disparity.
Everyone needs to face facts here- Itanium's an expensive flop akin to the iAPX432 CPU also from Intel. Unlike the i432, Intel didn't have the good sense to realize that while it looked good on paper, it didn't look so good in silicon and as such, they pushed the Itanium forward when it should have been euthanized earlier on. It performs decently in native mode, but not as well as comparably priced CPUs from AMD, Sun, and IBM. It does support the legacy sofware in a sort of emulation mode, but slower than any comparable machine from AMD.
I take that it's amazing and unbelievable that they'd be allowed to run this one even up the flagpole in the first place. But then, it's not gone to prelim hearings- it may be shot down in flames by the Judge presiding over the case. However, it's QUITE illegal to promulgate a nonexistent case, even on a tenuous legal theory- the term for such an act is "Barritry". Lawyers used to worry about something like that because if someone made it stick, it'd be disbarrment amongst other things. Nowadays, it seems that anything goes, even IF it's flatly illegal for the Lawyers to do it. I mean, this case and the SCO v. IBM case is prime examples of this.
The moment that you create a literary/artistic work, such as your post or my reply, it is Copyrighted. I choose to allow Slashdot to liberally publish the work in question (as I hope do you...), but it is still Copyrighted per how the laws are written- this doesn't mean it's a Registered Copyright, which is a different beast.
However, I can't see how their legal theory (which is all this really is- the law doesn't SAY what they're claiming...) is going to fly in a court with a competent Litigator on the defendent's side. While I'm not a lawyer, I'm very cognizent of how the law's supposed to work, being an author, professional software engineer, and Patented Inventor- to be sure, there's nuances, but...
The non-digital world analogy of what I see that they're trying to litigate the tort for would be a Library- which is very legal. Unless there's an act of unlawful downloading from the share, it's NOT infringement and therefore isn't something that the laws talk to. Worse, you don't go after the library unless they're printing copies themselves willfully, which would be the analogy of someone putting up stuff on a P2P program that's publicly accessable, they typically go after the infringers unless the Library's encouraging the act of copying with the photocopiers, tape recorders, etc. It remains to be seen whether or not the defendant actually was guilty of encouragement, but if they're not, RIAA largely doesn't have a case- and if there was no infringements accomplished, it's still not illegal no matter what the RIAA says. To be sure, again, I'm NOT a Lawyer- but my understandings of how the law works doesn't map to what they're trying to run up the flagpole here.
It's very much akin to why mountain climbers climb, etc.
It's because it's there and it's potentially hackable.
Until Xen can work without mods to the OS, you can't get it to host on anything but Linux (which HAS the mods available...) and it won't hypervisor for anything without mods (Again...)
The ability to handle doing it's magic mojo without OS modifications is still waiting in the wings from AMD and Intel in the form of extra hardware to allow it to do it's thing.
ZyDas provided an open source driver for their
USB 802.11G chips.
Ralink appears to have done the same thing.
Since the drivers are still somewhat in their infancy, your mileage may vary, but it appears that both vendors (Which comprise many of the USB thumb sized adapters out there...) have stepped up to the plate and provided source and technical data to back it up with. There's been decent reports of usability with the Hawking model using ZyDas' chipset. At least for now, devices like the Hawking HWU54G adapter are largely supported in some mode that is remotely usable. I suspect that by the end of year that the driver sets for these two vendors' chips will end up in the kernel proper.
Not overly relevant- NDA only applies when the info is not already disclosed by other parties. If it's already public knowlege, you can't be kept from publicly disbursing it yourself. I find that the Alaska people are dodging their responsibility to the constituents and using "proprietary" data formats as an excuse. Sounds like there's some funny business going on in there and they're trying to hide a felony or two in the mix.
They shouldn't compensate with "new" drivers that cover up the fact that the "same" model is nothing of the sort. Many of the USB WiFi adapters are actually supported- Hawking's is one example at this point. One of the "cheap" vendors took it upon themselves to provide an open sourced Linux driver. The PCMCIA landscape's a little iffy- but if you stick with Prism based cards (Yes, more expensive, but they're much better performers) you've got no issues there either as Intersil gifted us with the same thing, fully open sourced drivers. Broadcom's the biggest bad-boy in this story, with most of the integrated laptop WiFi chipsets being provided by them. Considering that most of the other players are also using software defined radios, there's really no excuse for them not stepping up to the plate with at least regular official binaries for Linux- if not source code. Their reason's BOGUS.